For many years, the poultry industry has recognized the importance of providing growing birds with the freedom to choose the most comfortable warmth at any one moment. In order to provide these micro-climates and be able to precisely control them at the liter level, the poultry industry has relied on radiant gas heating systems. These gas heating systems typically include a plurality of gas burner assemblies located throughout the brooding house.
The most popular radiant gas burner assemblies in use today are the radiant screen type burner which are suspended above the flock of growing birds at various spaced locations within the brooding house or barn. These radiant screen type burner assemblies each utilize a cast iron multi-port burner head which directs a burner flame such that the flame impinges on a frusto-conical screen located around the burner head. A reflector, normally manufactured from aluminum, is located above the multi-port burner head and above the frusto-conical screen to reflect the heat generated by the burner downward towards the growing birds. By strategically locating a plurality of these individual burner assemblies throughout the brooding house or barn, it is possible to provide an environment which is conducive for the growth of the birds in the flock.
One problem which is somewhat unique to the brooding systems of the poultry industry is that of air born contaminants consisting of fine dust from the unpaved brooder floors which is kicked up by the young birds and contaminants from the young birds themselves. The prior art cast iron burners suffer from performance problems because of the rough interior surfaces and irregular hole sizes which are inherent of the casting process. Undersized ports, tiny crevices and irregular interior surface features of the burner are areas for build up of dust and other contaminants that can adversely affect both the heating performances of the burner and the emissions generated by the burner. Some manufacturers of these prior art cast iron burners resize the ports with a secondary drilling and/or reaming operation and then add dust filter cans that require cleaning every two or three weeks. The additional machining operations, the addition of the dust filter cans and the continued maintenance of these systems add significant costs to the overall costs of raising the young birds.
The dust collection and contamination problems are not only a problem for the prior art burner ports, they also provide problems in the venturi tubes which supply the fuel to the burners. The venturi tubes are essentially in the horizontal mode as well as vertically oriented orifice fittings that include a substantially large flat face. This flat face provides a settling station for the air burn contaminants which will then have a tendency to adversely affect the operation of the venturi tube and the orifice fitting which in turn adversely affect the performance of the burner.
Accordingly, the continued development of radiant gas heaters for brooding systems is directed to a lower cost burner which resolve the problems associated with radiant gas burner assemblies for brooders.